Let's talk TALK...boxes, that is

[Mark Hammer]

So I picked up a 2nd hand Danelectro Free Speech last night.  First time I've ever used a talk box.  Pretty convenient unit, I have to say.  Rather than having to use a mic into the PA, it comes (well, came in this instance, since the original owner tossed it) with an electret mic that clips onto the plastic tube and plugs into the back of the pedal.  That way you can simply feed whatever the mic picks up from your mouth to your guitar amp.  It is a true "pedal" in the sense that it is in series with the rest of one's pedalboard/rig.

It has a "growl" control for cranking the gain of the little 386-based amp it includes, and a volume control that sets the gain of the mic preamp so that you don't have to take a volume hit when in talk-box mode.  All in all, a very sensible design. The only thing I don't like about it is the sound leakage from the built-in speaker.  Obviously if one was gigging, you'd be playing loud enough that you wouldn't hear it.  But I tend to test stuff out at volumes you can hear the telephone over.

However...

I'm looking through various Youtube videos of talkbox greats, and there is just something about folks using a Heil, Rocktron, or other midrange-driver-based talkbox that I'm not getting through the Danelectro.  Hard to describe, but it's a kind of raspy, yet slobbery, spattering and sizzling sound.  The Dano gives me a fuzz, but that's not a classic talkbox sound.

Right now I'm just getting used to it, playing straight into the pedal with the tube held between my teeth, Roger Troutman style, so I don't know if the missing grit and sputter is my technique, the absence of a mic, or the pedal itself.  Or maybe  I have the gain up too high?

It would thrill me no end to be able to play something like Steely Dan's "Haitian Divorce"...authentically.  Any of you folks have experience using talkboxes that can steer me in the right direction?   Are there on-line lessons or exercises for improving one's talkbox technique?

[digi2t]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me like an offshoot of the Digitech "Talker" function on my GNX3. It not a real talkbox in the traditional sense, but uses a mic input like the Dano, and then blends the mic with the guitar. If I remember correctly, the nice thing is that you can blend in the Talker function with any other effect that the GNX has to offer, allowing you to set and/or control the guitar parameters (overdrive, fuzz, reverb, delay, etc.). It is neat, but... "Do you feel like we do?".... not really.

The "hard and fast" way I understand true talkboxes, the guitar's actual signal is getting pumped through a tube, into your mouth, and you're modulating that signal with your mouth, into a mic. I think the Dano, like the GNX, is digitally combining them, and then you get what you get. Guitar + mic > out. I found it impossible to get that true talkbox sound from the GNX. With the talkbox, your mouth acts as a sound chamber, which I guess with practice, really shapes the guitar's "vocal" content. Guitar > mouth > mic > out. Digitally, all it does is combine the two, but it really does lack that oral aspect of your guitar's signal emanating from your mouth (think, Scorpions "The Zoo", or Eagles "Those Shoes").

It's hard for me to explain it, but in a nut shell, apples and oranges.

[Mark Hammer]

Well, I watch concert videos of Roger Troutman, and while he's playing a Minimoog (or similar) and I'm packing a guitar (so I thoroughly expect there to be tonal differences in the source signal), I watch this guy just throw the tube into his mouth, clench it between his teeth, and produce these sounds that are crazy clear (well,,,for a talkbox).  Granted, there is something to be said for having the sort of super-human tongue control that John Popper has (and Roger probably had before his brother shot him), but I'm just not hearing a lot of the sounds I hear from these other guys.   Not talking about being comprehensible, but simply hearing a given tone in passing, on the way from here to there; that gravelly froggy sound***.  Maybe I have to EQ the guitar a certain way before feeding it to the unit.

***I was thinking "Where have I heard that tone before?", and just remembered...at the dentist's!!  It's that same sound they make after the assistant has sprayed water in your mouth to get crap out of the way and is suctioning it out.

[digi2t]

Yup. you hit right on the head with the dentist thing. Something we did as a kids; Inflate a ballon, and then pinch the opening between the index and thumbs of both hands. Slowly stretching it open, the air rushing out would cause the end to vibrate, creating a squealing sound. We would do this, pointing the end into our mouths. Manipulating the end, and changing the shape of your mouth, would yeild some interesting sounds. I do it now sometimes, it really freaks out my dog.

No... no helium involved  .

Maybe they're treating the signal with a vocoder as well? I'm guessing here.

[ChanchoPancho]

I didn't know the existance of that effect but seeing it in a couple of demos in youtube, it seems to me that sound more like a wah pedal rather than a talk box. It lacks that midrange particular of the talk box. In my opinion and not that vast experience, no emulating effect is like the real thing. I had been planning to made a talkbox but I've never made the time to do it.
My idea is to get an audio power amp (about 15W or less), get also a low power driver and put it all together in a box.
I don't know if there's a low power driver but I have to look around. The power amp section i plan to do based on a single IC. something like this...
http://www.eleccircuit.com/tda2030-14w-single-chip-power-amp/
I don't think it's necesary to put an valve power amp because in the end there's no HI-FI signal.
I don't know if there's anyone that made this project yet (or is developing it), but I'm sure someone thought of making it.

***I was thinking "Where have I heard that tone before?", and just remembered...at the dentist's!!  It's that same sound they make after the assistant has sprayed water in your mouth to get crap out of the way and is suctioning it out.

The only moment worthwhile when going to the dentist really... The talk box moment.. 

[petey twofinger]

i messed with diy talk box in the mid 90's , simplest home brew design , wooden box , speaker , funnel tube , mic .

what i remember thru trial and error was this :

i ended up using a larger diameter tube with a 4 inch speaker ,  turning up the output volume a lot (15 watt fender). the more air pushed thru the tube the better the effect . if its rattling your teeth , you are good . this however made the residual ambient sound coming off the box louder too . this lead to improving the insulation of the device , and ultimately a pile of pillows over it too ! the recordings sound good though , for live use , it would be a "hassle" for most users .... so yeah , shoulda kept that to myself cause i never figured it out properly .

i did see a video with jeff beck , he had a wine flask type shoulder bag with the amp/speaker in it , also a smaller dia. tube . this design leads to a shorter tube length , which i guess would be more efficient ,  but once again , not a pedal so 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYMiLhj3wz8

[R.G.]

This reminds me of one of the things in the "thought of, not implemented" pile.

I was once acquainted with a guy who lost his vocal cords through disease. He had an electric-shaver-like buzzer he held to his throat to introduce a buzz that his mouth then modulated into speech. It would be really interesting to make a throat-speaker containing collar that would honk speaker output into your throat for vocal shaping. There are some obvious technical and development challenges, but I think this offers much of the ultimate in talk-box effects, at least until we get to digital high-resolution filter banks and spectrum shaping on speaker signals.

[Mark Hammer]

In the book I'm reading (almost done), Peter Frampton describes the talkbox as essentially replacing your own larynx with a different sound-source.  Homer Dudley, developer of the earliest vocoders, had the realization, while recuperating from surgery in bed, that speech was sort of like a radio in reverse.  Instead of taking low-freq audio information and then modulating with a high-freq carrier, the larynx generated lots of high-freq infor, which was then modulated by a much lower-latency system in the form of the mouth.  The earliest vocoders in military communication used a big vinyl disc with prerecorded noise.  The speech parameters of the sender (as divided up into formant-related bands) would then be descrambled at the other end (e.g., at 10 Downing St. or the White House), and used to shape the noise from the disc so that a vocoded representation of the original speaker could be reconstructed.

One of the other things noted in the book, is the number of talkbox users that complained of loose fillings.  The downside to using a big midrange driver and a 15-25W amp is that your mouth took an inordinate amount of punishment.  In that respect the Danelectro pedal  is comfortable.  Now if only I could stop my saliva glands from working in response to the insertion of an object into my mouth.

[digi2t]

Now if only I could stop my saliva glands from working in response to the insertion of an object into my mouth.

That, and tell your drummer to lay off anything with a bell-like quality  .

[pinkjimiphoton]

hi guys, been slinging talkboxes for years, both homebrew and commercial (rocktron banshee)

the dano pedal has issues. it won't work live, at "with a drummer" levels.... the microphones feedback, making the pedal oscillate.

what it does is take your signal, amp it with about a half watt (to get good talkbox tone, you need a good 30-50 watts, contrary to many people on the net that haven't used them practically.) and pump the sound up the tube, where as you said you have a small electret mic that plugs back into the pedal and is then pumped thru another amp stage and out to your amp.

i tried one, my bro mike too...and tho they could sound really cool at bedroom levels, they were just impractical live.


now getting back to my wattage statement. and this applies to rg's comment, too, about the external buzzer used by cancer patients.

a good deal of the signal is attenuated by the meat we call our heads, not to mention phase cancellations etc...you need to get the talkbox output coming out of your mouth
at LEAST as loud as you sing...and it takes quite a bit of volume. if you DON'T have that volume, you won't move enough air out of your mouth and nose to make it sound like your vocal cavities. too little power? too much frequency loss.

clenching the tube between your teeth helps create consonant sounds. you want a nice phat warm midrangey overdrive, this two will help with the illusion of speech by helping to make non-vowel sounds. some, like s's etc you still must say. too much distortion or fuzz will render it too distorted...you want it to sound kinda like you're gargling your words. with practice, you can start with vowels, then learn to say the alphabet....the more ya do it, the easier it gets.

it helps to "overpronounce" words somewhat....but the big one?

don't forget to breathe...seriously!! i tend to hold my breath alot when i use my talkbox, and a few other guys i've met have the same problem.

the easy way to make one is get a 16r midrange compression driver. they have throats about an inch across.

go to a hardware store, and pick up a length of clear 1/2 inch tubing (or larger if you want, i use 3/4 i think)...you want about 6-7 feet.

also get a replacement ac plug, the kind you'd get for a grounded power jack...you want one of them three prong things with a black rubber boot that protects where you screw on the wires inside.

you need that black rubber boot. open up the end where the wire would go thru enough to fit the clear plastic tubing.

these things just happen to fit on the throat of the driver pretty close to perfect. you may need to "screw" it on. i put an automotive hose clamp on mine.

now all ya gotta do is wire it up to a pair of jacks and a simple spdt stompswitch....run the input jack's tip to the common on the switch, put one side to the + of the driver, the other side to the tip of the other jack for the output. connect the ground of the driver to the two sleeve connections of your jacks, and there's your talkbox. plug the output of your amp into the input, and the output of the talkbox into your speaker cabinet. there ya have it...either talkbox, or cab. believe it or not, the sound going into your mouth will  not be anywhere near as loud as your speaker cabinet most likely. there's a lot of attenuation, that's why the external voicebox buzzer thing won't work out...the meat we're made of attenuates different frequencies at different rates...the guys that rely on those boxes to communicate have to really practice to be understandable, and it's a limited range of frequencies that will produce legible words when filtered thru flesh.

i really think you'll get more mileage out of an actual talkbox, mark. the freespeech is cool, but it's like the difference between a schwinn with training wheels and a harley roadking.

hope this helps a little...i really dig the talkbox thang, it's a gas live and a lot of fun to play with.

peace

i use an old university driver, 16 ohms, and about 30 watts...been using it for years

[pinkjimiphoton]

frampton talks here about his talkbox, and how he went back to a 100 watter to drive it to get "that sound"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo1zshCbya8&feature=context&context=G297e431RVAAAAAAAAAA

[petey twofinger]

100 watts helps to dry up the saliva .